Making Stories in Video Games

Many video games have had ground-breaking, successful stories that captivated their audiences.  I can think of several that come to mind on console: Xenogears, FF7, and Street Fighter, of all things. (All three of these have had multiple movies and spin-offs made from them.)

I'm making a game that's a mash-up of mythology, anime concepts and graphic novel, so it's important for me to consider a lot of elements that don't always have to go into video games to make them fun.  I'm limiting myself even further by making it for a mobile console.  (Anyone that thinks making for mobile isn't limiting is stupid or lying.)

I just finished watching Fate/Stay Night's prequel, Fate Zero today.  It didn't live up to the original series in my mind, but there's a couple things it did right that always, always capture a large audience.

1. They used mythical heroic characters that are interesting and vivid.
2.  Each hero has a persona.  They are not a Hero, but a 'hero class.'  It makes for an interesting shift in dialogue and scenario. There's a meta-level to the hero story.
3. Instead of being about survival, like the first show was, Fate Zero is more about the deep personalities each Servant have and fleshing out the content involved.  By comparison, the Master characters are much, much less interesting.  That was clearly a design choice in this series.  (probably due to the popularity of characters like Sabre, etc.).  Anime watchers, and fantasy lovers in general, usually love deep fantasy. This series and (Fate/Stay Night) is a pretty good example of that.
4. Each of the characters steal the show in their own right.  The Caster class duo are both the comic relief and the source of tension for the entire series.  The Rider Class and Lancer class are both bold and herioc.  The was very much a series about being heroic, which is a huge contrast to the original series, which was about kicking the crap out of different heroes and villains. 


This show was a gamble from the normal story structure of a hero anime, which is good, since I think anime is changing the way it does its storylines.  (Not such a bad idea, since the formula hasn't changed in decades.  I'm looking at you, Bleach.  You used to be a good show.  Then you had a second season.)   I feel it paid off well, and I have decided to incorporate several story elements into the game that I didn't plan to that have more anime inspiration to them.  Hopefully it will balance out the story structure and simplify it a little bit.